


first impressions

by ChewingGumGum



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Guns, Kidnapping, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:49:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChewingGumGum/pseuds/ChewingGumGum
Summary: People change but friends are forever. Matt comes back to seek Mello and finds only traces of his childhood friend.





	first impressions

Manicured nose busted, running like a faucet of bright red, ten-thousand-dollar surgical job gone down the drain. Down onto the plump lips, the trident white teeth, the curve of the chin, dripping onto those tanned silicone tits of hers where a gaudy necklace sat only moments before. Her breathing is ragged with fear, eyes blinded by the dirty rag that reeked of motor oil. Mello stood in the doorway watching her quiver under the touch of one of his guys, thinking of a way to go about this and trying his best to suppress the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“Dolores Navarro” his voice finally came, quenching the suspense within of the people in the room: the gunmen, the getaway drivers, the council. Her lips moved to speak, shaken by the idea that these men knew her name as it was spelled out in her birth certificate. No one, not even her own mother, addressed her by her birth name– to everyone she was Lola.

“Y-yes” she replied shakily, her head bowing involuntarily

“Dolores, where is your father?” He asked calmly. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion and she took too long to answer, earning a nudge from the monstrous paw on her shoulder

“A-at the house. At home in Calabasas, he was with me tonight” she stuttered, unable to understand how they had successfully plucked her from her own backyard without knowing the man was in the next room. 

“Not your stepfather,” he said sounding more exasperated by the second “your father. Your blood. Where is he?”

The amount of detail they had on her life was frightening, but at least it all started to make sense. Her neck craned to face the source of the voice even she wasn’t able to see him “Mickey?” Her expression relaxed into something resembling relief “you’re looking for Mickey?” Her lips spread into a smile “how would I know?” she stated humorously as if forgetting for a moment that her life depended on the conversation at hand. Her haughty American accent made Mello roll his eyes and signal his crony to reel her back. The sound of a gun being cocked next to her ear was a stark reminder that the question was serious.

“The last call made from his cell phone before it was disconnected was made to your number”

Dolores pursed her lips for a moment, realizing she wouldn’t be able to utter a single lie to get herself out of this situation, leaving her with no choice but to cave in. The smell of a cigarette burning reached her senses, “yes. He called about my birthday” she stated, searching for something useful to pin to her statement, something that would convince them to keep her alive “he was at the airport, I could hear the… the speaker, the announcements”

There was a silence and then the sharp sound of a chair being dragged against concrete, Mello sat down and took off the feather-rimmed coat off his shoulders “any idea where he might’ve been headed?”

The young woman spat out the blood that had seeped into her mouth, the beads of her dress sang with every movement “Miami, Chicago, Detroit. He has a muse in Jamaica and I believe another in Las Vegas… perhaps Panama” her tone, forced to be casual, was betrayed by the shakiness of her voice.

The blonde boy chewed at his bottom lip, having no chocolate bar handy to distract his habit of nibbling while deep in thought. This was a dead lead. He rubbed his face, trying his best to remain calm in the event of being far too deep into this to go back.

“Miami” the girl spoke unprompted this time “he’s with the Jamaican girl in Mami, he always brings her down for her birthday” she uttered, feeling her hands grow numb under the tight rope holding her prisoner

“How sure are you?”

“Confident” she shifted, the pain of her bare knees on the ragged floor becoming too much “I don’t know the date but she’s a Taurus like my mother”

“What’s her name?”

“Edwina” she spat out blood again, growing nauseous from the taste in her mouth, holding back a gagging reflex “Edwina… I don’t remember but it’s a common last name. Smith, Johnson, uh…”

Mello lifted his hand and tapped his top lip twice, silently asking for someone to wipe her face so he wouldn’t have to watch her speak through bloody teeth any longer. Rod Ross pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket, the one he often used to wipe his gun, and left Mello’s side to step slowly towards the woman. She stuttered nervously at the sound of someone approaching her, her body leaning away from the noise even as she was held in place. Ross reached down with the cloth in hand, but the minute it touched her face the woman yelped and began to hyperventilate.

“Please, please no” she begged, pulling her face away, the feeling of men’s hands all over her from hours back relighted. The grip around her ankles, wrists, neck, over her mouth like ghosts.

“Shhh… I’m not going to hurt you” he said hoarsely with a chuckle “yet.” The young woman whimpered like a bitch as her head was enveloped by thick fingers that held her still as the cloth picked up the blood from her face and Ross laughed. Laughter began to course through the other men as well, giving her an idea of just how many of them there were standing all around. The indentations of her ribcage growing and sinking rapidly was visible above the V-shaped hem of her dress, the pins that kept her bottle blonde salon hair in place were digging into her skull under the pressure of the Ross’ hand. Mello watched the scene unfold in front of him, feeling sorry for himself for having to work alongside these brutes. 

“Ey, Ross you missed a spot!” A male voice taunted from the back, causing more laughter to erupt. The man reached down to wipe the trail of blood resting on top of her rounded breast, causing her body to jerk back violently with a chorus of chimes from her beads at the touch. Tears welled up in her eyes but she held them back with every fiber in her body: she knew all about this kind of men and knew how much their pride swelled at the sight of tears. 

“That’s enough,” said Mello in a monotone, bringing the room back to pitch silence. Ross straightened and let go of her head, tucking the cloth back into his pocket and stepping aside so Mello could continue his interview “Edwina what?”

The young woman panted from the exertion of emotion but, before she can deliver what can best be described as only a half-truth, a voice breaks through the warehouse and delivers the facts. “Edwina Thomas.”

Behind the blindfold, all the girl can hear is the shifting of bodies to face the intruder and then stunned silence. “Tall black girl, thin and curvy, light eyes, gap tooth, legs for fucking days. She’s hard to miss.” 

A gun is cocked an on cue several other follow suit, augmenting the tension in the room by tenfold. Anyone in their right mind would cower at the practiced reaction of lawless men aiming their fire in one direction, but the dull steps of the newcomer’s rubber soles against the concrete continue slow and measured with the certainty that _they won’t shoot._

Mello reacts quickly, raising his hand to signal his men to lower their guns and they do. A pack of trained dogs at the mercy of a young boy with the face of an angel– they say Lucifer was God’s favorite. The room is now thick with the expectations of what is to happen. The girl can’t see but she can feel something brooding, dark clouds sliding over the sky to alert of a storm. No one in the room knows what’s going on now, the perfectly crafted plan they’d followed to a T was now hanging by a pendulum with the arrival of the stranger dressed in a coat three sizes too big. 

The boy is tall for his age, but what he exceeds in height he lacks in girth. Freckled skin to bone, wispy pubescent hairs sticking out of his face, legs like angled wires wrapped in worn denim. His frazzled red hair comes into view as he steps into the light, unafraid of the boss himself. It’s hard to tell what is going through his head as his eyes are encased by the orange lenses of his goggles, the purpose of which evades everyone who’s ever met him. 

Today, for the first time since he was fifteen years old and deserted the grounds of his childhood home, Mello is at a loss. 

“What are you doing here?” he demands, not with the urgency of a contender but with the breathlessness of disbelief. The chair scrapes against the floor once more as he stands to greet his visitor gun in hand, eyes skeptical because time has gone by and he can’t be sure Roger isn’t behind their reunion.

“I’ve been watching you” Matt admits without qualms, pausing his walk to eye his childhood friend, to take note of what’s left of him. Mihael had always been a tenacious kid, goal-oriented, committed, competitive. It was hard to gauge where his limits stood as he often violated them time and again, but it was obvious to him that in this game and in this moment the lines were completely blurred. He had aged so much in just a few months– his eyes darkened by experiences that cannot be forgotten. Dark circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, scars on his arms from scuffles (opposed and not), fingers burning with confidence in a trigger. 

Matt doesn’t really know what he’s here for, all he knows is that he’s been searching for Mello like mad and now he has the man standing in front of him. He feels like a dog that has finally caught its tail. 

“What more do you know?” The blonde inquires, strategically failing to specify if he wants to know the depth of knowledge Matt has on him or his deserter. Mickey got away with half of their liquid funds and beyond the mind-shattering numerical value of it, the boss’ pride has been wounded.

“Faena Hotel on Miami Beach. I’ll give you the room number after you greet me properly,” he mumbles sardonically, pulling a cigarette out of a pack and lighting it on the spot.

The men look amongst them, shocked by the tone the stranger has taken with their boss. Mello has a reputation for expecting a certain degree of respect– an orphan carving his own place in this world via teeth and tongue. 

The angel-faced boy can sense this and knows he has to set the tone. He swallows thickly. Swallows years of comradery, of intimacy, of butterfly touches and wet saliva on his face and neck. Swallows bitter pills and heartache, secrets ushered in the middle of the night, sputtered through tears, soft confessions in the shadows of the playground. Feels the load go down solid and heavy like a rock, filled with all the words he wished he would’ve said before he left and all the times he ached to pick up the phone and dial the son of a bitch just to hear his voice. 

“Do you know how to get to him?” He hisses through a clenched jaw, eyes lowering and glowering. 

“Yes. I know exactly how to get to get to him so whatever this is” Mat motions towards the bloody broad on the floor “isn’t really necessary.” He knows he’s poking a sleeping dragon and things are about to get very ugly. He already owes the bump on his nose bridge to his insolences, recalls the bruised ribs and shins vividly for one too many impulse remarks that cost him a night of good sleep. What’s one more? One more blow to the head to put end to the drama. At least that would be the case if this was the old Mihael but no matter how absurdly astounding his mathematical brain is he could’ve never gauged what he was up against now. 

Matt once made a promise to Mello: that he would love him forever. Now, he didn’t ever utter the words, he’s not stupid. However, he said the words in his head as he lay on his side watching the sleeping face in front of him and felt a warmth that he didn’t know could exist inside of him because, as easily as the little blonde boy could be a terror, he could also be a beacon. That night the rain was coming down heavy and the drops were slamming against the window with such fervor that he hadn’t been able to reconcile sleep, so he spent the entire night counting the slow breaths and watching how the light eyelashes shook from deep sleep. He breathed in the scent of cocoa and vanilla off of the sleeping body next to his and decided he could live in this moment eternally. 

A promise is a promise and so he was here: in the lion’s den, dragging his scrawny ass across the globe to show up uninvited. 

Matt doesn’t give into fear and was proud of it. 

Until now, that is. 

“It’s not really necessary?” Mello repeats sadistically, cocking his gun and raising it to face the barrel towards his hostage “let’s not waste your time then.”

_He won’t shoot._

Matt opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted by the loudest sound he’s ever heard. Mello’s arm tenses at the recoil, a bullet shot in a fragment of a second leaving behind a smoking barrel and a ringing in his ears. He looks ahead and watches Dolores crumple to the ground like a wet rag, blindfold saving everyone present from having to witness her skull blasted by the impact. 

His breath hitches and the cigarette he was smoking falls to the ground silently. Green eyes roll to focus back on Mello and in that moment Matt finally grasps how much everything has changed. 

_Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?_

Mail looks at the man in front of him again and mourns for everything that was, everything that will become of them. 


End file.
